Posted on January 14, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument by Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar Review: Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument by Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar Reviewed by Fred Carlson Originally published in American Lutherie #74, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar ISBN 0-9727313-0-X Nicasio, CA: Experimental Musical Instruments, 104 pp., 2002 www.windworld.com I know I’m not the only electronically challenged luthier who’s been waiting for someone to write an understandable, useful handbook on pickups, microphones, and instrument amplification. I’d been envisioning the author to be lutherie renaissance-man Rick Turner, who wrote the fine “Electronic Answer Man” columns for American Lutherie in years past. I know how busy Rick is, but I remain ever-hopeful that pressure from the lutherie community will drive him to it someday. In the meantime, another of my musical instrument heroes has come out with his take on such a manual, and I’m happy to say it goes a long way toward filling the void in useful introductions to this subject. Bart Hopkins’ take on the adventure of electronically amplifying a musical instrument is undoubtedly coming from a different perspective than one from which a more guitar-oriented writer like Rick Turner would approach it. Bart has spent many years spearheading Experimental Musical Instruments, an organization devoted to interesting and unusual musical instruments of all sorts. For many years, EMI published a journal of the same name that featured all sorts of amazing stuff from the wonderful, quirky, experimental underside of instrument building. Bart did writing and illustrating for the journal as well as editing and publishing duties. He’s also an active guitarist and creative instrument builder/inventor with experience and interests covering a broad spectrum of the music world. Since EMI’s journal ceased publication in 1999, Bart has kept the organization alive as a source of back issues. EMI also offers recordings of many of the wild and wonderful creations featured in the journals’ pages, as well as several books Bart has written on instrument design and building. Recently the EMI catalog has added pickups and pickup components and materials to its stable of offerings. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 11, 2010March 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Product Reviews: Livos Oil Finish Product Reviews: Livos Oil Finish by Fred Carlson Originally published in American Lutherie #63, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Livos Oil Finish I’ve experimented with my share of different finishing materials over the twenty-odd years (twenty-eight, to be exact, and some of them have been very odd indeed) that I’ve been building wooden stringed instruments. From my early years working with my artist/luthier mentor Ken Ripportella, I remember various concoctions of linseed oil and beeswax; later came guitar building with all sorts of awful chemicals, starting with automotive acrylic lacquer and soon moving on to the more standard nitrocellulose brew. It took some years to get advanced to the point that we had an actual exhaust fan to draw the toxic solvent fumes out of the shop, and during one of those years I had a bed on a small loft above my workbench, next to the finishing room. When finishing was going on, I was breathing lacquer fumes day and night. By the time we finally got the exhaust fan and I learned how to use a respirator, a certain amount of damage had been done, and I began to experience a lot of discomfort when exposed to lacquer/solvent fumes, as well as other chemicals. Although I had no idea then that my ignorance would compromise my health, perhaps for the rest of my life, it became pretty obvious pretty fast that I couldn’t work around solvent-based finishes anymore. I had continued to use oil and wax finishes on some instruments, but had not been completely happy with either the acoustic or protective qualities of those finishes when applied to the top of a guitar. I’d taken to using oil and wax for everything but the top, for which I was using nitrocellulose until the mid‑’80s. My sensitivity problems caused me to switch to one of the early waterborne lacquer-like polymers, similar to what I still use today. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010March 11, 2024 by Dale Phillips Review: Experimental Musical Instruments Review: Experimental Musical Instruments Reviewed by Fred Carlson Originally published in American Lutherie #3, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Experimental Musical Instruments A Newsletter for the Design, Construction, and Enjoyment of New Sound Sources Published bimonthly Magazine defunct (1999) Volume 1, #1 (1975) In a world of luthiers trying, with all the intensity luthiers are capable of, to see who can make the best Martin or Strad copy, this publication is a potential breath of fresh air. It is my personal opinion that we as luthiers have to not only continue traditions, but evolve, expand, even break out of them entirely at times, in order to keep them vibrant and meaningful. Experimental Musical Instruments is a newsletter that seems to me to get to the heart of this issue. Creation is what it’s all about: using existing knowledge as a basis to experiment, learn more, and have fun. And maybe make some real breakthroughs in the process. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
